higher education
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CIRULI: Higher education is in political trouble
Higher education is facing turbulent times. It must navigate tight budgets, high prices, enrollment shortfalls and sky-rocketing student debt. Since the Great Recession, state budgets for public higher education institutions have declined by 16 percent per student, and during the past decade, tuition at four-year colleges and universities nationally has gone up 35 percent by…
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Beall: It’s time for regime change at the University of Colorado
President Bruce Benson’s stewardship of the state’s flagship university system has stalled, and neither he nor his massive administration is articulating a clear vision or mission for CU. The university system has strayed from its role as the state’s preeminent university and increasingly resembles a profit-seeking enterprise. From the beginning, Benson was an unlikely president…
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Noonan: Bill envisions high quality education for Colorado … But where’s the money?
A new bipartisan bill, Achieving a Vision for Education in Colorado, HB17-1287, sets up an advisory board to create a strategic plan for public education, preschool through college, for implementation up to 2030. The bill recognizes that the 21st century world is “fiercely competitive” and that a “world class highly effective twenty-first-century learning system is the…
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Noonan: State required tests risk religious, citizenship discrimination in higher ed
Student data privacy and standardized testing have floated around the Capitol as hot issues for several years. In this legislative session, religious and citizenship discrimination has been added to this boiling stew through SB17-102, a bill concerned with demographic information collected by the College Board testing service through its Preliminary Scholastic Assessment Test (PSAT) and…
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Noonan: In politics, a principled person is hard to find
Huey Long, the legendary populist from Louisiana, said “The time has come for all good men to rise above principle.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th century transcendentalist, said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Both aphorisms are much in play lately. Republican Sen. Tim Neville, R-Littleton, is sponsoring a bill, SB17-062, on free…
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New CU Regent Jack Kroll discusses key problems facing CU and the higher education community
Having won a hard-fought 2016 Democratic primary race for the open seat on the University of Colorado Board of Regents and then cruising uncontested in the general election, 1st Congressional District Regent Jack Kroll, D-Denver, says he is ready to fight the important battles facing the university. Not long before his, 4th Congressional District Regent…
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Transportation funding, fix to construction problems top House agenda
House Democrats and Republicans agree that two matters are likely to dominate discussion in the chamber during the upcoming legislative session, although they disagree about how to refer to one of them. Along with funding the state’s transportation needs, House lawmakers from both sides of the aisle told The Colorado Statesman recently that tackling the…